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Wendy Davis’s Media Meltdown
National Review ^ | 02/04/2014 | John Fund

Posted on 02/04/2014 9:05:10 AM PST by SeekAndFind

It’s been a rocky rollout for the Wendy Davis campaign in Texas. She announced for governor four months ago on the strength of the massive public attention paid to her 13-hour filibuster of a bill limiting abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. But since then her media operation has been so rocky, seasoned Texas journalists are mocking it.

David Mann, editor of the liberal Texas Observer, wrote a blunt article calling her campaign a “media fail”: “The Wendy Davis operation is about the worst at media relations that I’ve ever seen. Her team’s mismanagement of the press is damaging her candidacy.”

Mann recounts several not-ready-for-prime-time moments, from sending reporters to an incorrect location for a media event to “refusing to confirm basic campaign scheduling details” out of suspicion of the media. Noting Davis’s media problems began as soon as she announced in October he, links to a November column by Sandra Sanchez, opinion editor of the Monitor, the leading newspaper in South Texas.

Sanchez openly admits she wants “to believe that Davis could win and be our next governor” but concludes that isn’t likely to happen if the “missteps, gaffes and goofs” she witnessed during a Davis appearance in Pharr, Texas, continue. Sanchez wrote: “It was embarrassing to watch as a campaign staffer prematurely announced Davis’ arrival and urged everyone to stand up and chant, which they did for several minutes until it was obvious that Davis wasn’t there. ‘I thought she was here,’ a worker mused into the microphone to the quizzical and confused glances from the crowd of 60 or so.” Sanchez herself tried to ask a question about Davis’ recent response to an abortion question but “before (Davis) could articulate, her new press aide Rebecca Acuña jumped in and said ‘that comment was taken out of context.’” Acuña then called Sanchez late that night requesting she change a headline on the Monitor’s website.

Every campaign has a shakedown phase, but Mann notes that Davis’s problems have been ongoing. In January, after serious questions were raised by the Dallas Morning News about Davis’s account of her life, there was little substantive comment from the Davis campaign for eleven days. Then reporters were invited to a dinner sponsored by the Travis County Democratic Party where Davis was going to explain herself. But when reporters arrived at the dinner, an event they had received a media advisory for, “they were turned away.” Only the Dallas Morning News reporter was allowed in. Other reporters were directed to a live-stream link of the speech on the Internet. “This is not unlike someone sending you an invitation that says you’re invited to a party, but, hey, you can watch it on Skype,” Mann wrote.

Democrats have reason to worry they have a candidate who is untested and mercurial. Frances Martel of Breitbart News has documented Davis’s history of “fluid political allegiances” in her career, which include having contributed to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, voting in Republican primaries as late as 2006, and last month declaring herself in favor of expanding gun rights despite an “F” rating from the NRA during her years in the Texas state senate.

Davis’s response to charges of opportunism has been to view them “as a compliment” because people don’t “necessarily know what my ideology might be because I wasn’t driven by that.” There apparently is so much about Wendy Davis we don’t know. And if she keeps her current media team she will have a difficult time explaining her sides of the story.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: abortionbarbie; ditzy; gregabbott; meltdown; texas; wendydavis
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To: txrefugee

That is the good news. She is going to draw pro-abortion campain dollars away from other races, and still lose.


21 posted on 02/04/2014 9:55:34 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: txrefugee

Crap! It just dawned on me why the left-wing is turning on her already. It is to shut down the flow of dollars to her campaign and use them elsewhere, races they have a chance of winning.


22 posted on 02/04/2014 9:57:03 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney

If she goes south quickly enough to possibly be a major down-ticket drag, you don’t think one of the Castro brothers won’t step in to save the day?


23 posted on 02/04/2014 10:07:54 AM PST by kevkrom (I'm not an unreasonable man... well, actually, I am. But hear me out anyway.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Her campaign is as good as stale coffee and

Campaign is Burnt Toast

24 posted on 02/04/2014 10:13:51 AM PST by Ron H. (The GOP-e is the Tea Party's best recruiter yet. Stay at it GOP the Tea Party appreciates your help.)
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To: kevkrom

The filing deadline for the Texas governor primary election closed December 9, 2013.

http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/voter/2014dates.shtml


25 posted on 02/04/2014 10:14:40 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney

You say that as if deadlines and laws matter to Democrats...


26 posted on 02/04/2014 10:24:01 AM PST by kevkrom (I'm not an unreasonable man... well, actually, I am. But hear me out anyway.)
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To: kevkrom

Good Luck convincing Nandita Berry, Texas Secretary of State, to put a name on the Texas General Election Ballot that did not come from the Primary.

Deadlines and Laws may not matter to many democrats, but they will sure matter to her.


27 posted on 02/04/2014 10:52:02 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: SeekAndFind

DERP!!


28 posted on 02/04/2014 11:12:54 AM PST by 12th_Monkey (One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
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To: red-dawg

I ordered dry white toast and four whole fried chickens and a coke


29 posted on 02/04/2014 11:17:17 AM PST by 12th_Monkey (One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
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To: henkster

Far as I’m concerned she can take her Texas toast @$$ and move to New York


30 posted on 02/04/2014 11:18:04 AM PST by 12th_Monkey (One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
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To: TexasCajun

“Mole...... Mole...... MOLEY, MOLEY, MOLEY, MOLEY, MOLEY!!!”


31 posted on 02/04/2014 11:20:18 AM PST by 12th_Monkey (One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
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To: thackney

they got deep pockets in Hollywood


32 posted on 02/04/2014 11:21:06 AM PST by 12th_Monkey (One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog
When the media turns on a Lib, you know they have sniffed out the fact that this is a person who could damage the Lib brand for a LOOOOONG time to come.

Even liberal Texans can smell bull**** and don't like to step in it!

33 posted on 02/04/2014 12:35:48 PM PST by TexanByBirth (Free Republic: where they may agree with the message, but they love to shoot the messenger!)
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To: babble-on

Who is opposing her in the D primary?
Have seen zero info on that, with all the MSM revved up over Abortion Barbie?


34 posted on 02/04/2014 12:39:34 PM PST by nascarnation (I'm hiring Jack Palladino to investigate Baraq's golf scores.)
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To: 12th_Monkey

“Don’t you blaspheme in here!” ;-)


35 posted on 02/04/2014 12:58:35 PM PST by Pining_4_TX (All those who were appointed to eternal life believed. Acts 13:48)
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To: 12th_Monkey

36 posted on 02/04/2014 1:00:32 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: Pining_4_TX

was Jake prophetic when he said “I hate Illinois Nazi’s” ??


37 posted on 02/04/2014 1:19:17 PM PST by 12th_Monkey (One man one vote is a big fail, when the "one" man is an idiot.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Need to be careful here - Elizabeth Warren made some of the stupidest statements on record and still got elected. Course that was Peoples Rep of Mass instead of Texas.


38 posted on 02/04/2014 5:41:26 PM PST by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: Some Fat Guy in L.A.

I’m starting to believe that it only matters who counts the votes. And if elections are close then it becomes academic. The statist and their propagandist media set them up.


39 posted on 02/04/2014 5:48:12 PM PST by 3boysdad (The very elect.)
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To: 12th_Monkey

Ha, ha, could be!


40 posted on 02/08/2014 9:11:31 PM PST by Pining_4_TX (All those who were appointed to eternal life believed. Acts 13:48)
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